Logistics

McKay Patrol - The Uniting Church serving outback Queensland.

Despite the improvement in the road network, the vagaries of weather in the Northwest still necessitates that quite often communities, stations and people are isolated for months on end, where the only transport accessible is expensive air transport.

Isolated families often call upon the padre to deliver much needed supplies or to fly in or fly out staff and family members.

The floods in the gulf area following cyclone Larry in 2006 meant that many stations ran short on much needed supplies.

The Padre was, in these instances, able to provide emergency relief as well as providing a free service allowing people to leave their stations for short breaks away. In some instances, pharmaceuticals and other necessities could only be flown in and even in the dry months, the delivery of such items is absolutely essential to the provision of reasonable living standards.

The Uniting Church Patrol has also had a long relationship with the Mount Isa School of the Air, both in terms of a chaplaincy role, as well as being able to facilitate teacher-student meetings. In addition to attending and participating in mini-school gatherings and school activity days, the padre often flies teachers to remote stations where the children can get an opportunity to spend a day with their teacher. The padre also regularly transports children to and from their stations to meet bus or rail connections to or from boarding schools and has flown station people to meet connecting commercial flights for both medical or other urgent needs.

Whilst postal service and transport services exist in the outback, the padre is often called upon for urgent assistance which would not otherwise be available.

Broken machinery, particularly in the middle of a muster or other crucial activities, can spell economic disaster and the timely delivery of parts has often averted such disasters.